My guess is you’re fine carrying a flashlight. I’m not aware of any laws making high lumen lights illegal.
High lumen lights might not even be that intrusive if they’re floody. A throwy light shined in someone’s face would be much more irritating.
That said… use common sense. Don’t shine your bright lights in your neighbors’ windows. That might be considered a nuisance or harassment. And if you think your neighbors might think you a prowler and call police, perhaps you should adjust your behavior to avoid that. Maybe turn your light down.
Funny, ’cause just last night there was a black Charger with a coupla yayhoos lighting up each house with a lumen-blaster going full-tilt. Might’ve been looking for a house address, who knows, but whatever light they were using was kinda floody and Angry Blue™ , and would light up a whole doorway-plus from street to sidewalk. No distinct hotspot+spill, either, so who knows what kind of light it was.
And that’s the problem. Had they used a throwier light and just scanned for a house-number, it wouldn’t’ve attracted nearly as much attention as blasting through someone’s blackout-drapes.
Here, my “testing” any lights involves just lighting up treetops that I can see from my backyard. And even then, I usually wait ’til zero-dark-thirty to do it. No way do I even come near anyone’s windows with the beam.
Out in the sticks, I’d definitely keep to unpopulated areas, try like Hell to not catch anyone’s house with a bright beam, etc. And in the case of looking for a cat, keep the person’s number on speed-dial in case the local militsiya starts inquiring. Never know, they might be nice enough to even help look, but then again, get a cranky one having a bad day, and he might just want to pass it on to you.
I see that you have another question:[QUOTE] I'm just wondering if any members have had an encounter with law enforcement because of a very bright light .[/QUOTE]No. I have shined very bright flashlights down the middle of residential streets at night and I have never had contact with the police because of that. MM15, M43, TN36UT, TK75vnQ70, two X65's at the same time, X45, K75 and R90TS have resulted in no police contact with me. Imalent MS18 when aimed down the center of a residential street has, in my opinion, too much powerful flood to aim down the middle of a residential street. I have had contact with the police walking on the street, because after almost 9,000 pedestrian miles in residential neighborhood streets, in almost four years, I have no dog bite injuries on my legs or anywhere else on my body, but not for my neighbors at-large Shepherd breeds' lack of extreme trying, twice, with a tenth of a second to spare the first time, and a third of a second to spare the second time. No flashlight was used in my split second self defense.
In view of the other goings-on in Va. and Commiefornia, flashlights are gonna wind up on some list sooner or later. High lumen counts will be considered weapons as will crenellated bezels. NJ will be first, followed by NY. Just wait and see if I'm not right.
I haven’t had any unfriendly interactions, but a cop did shine his light to get my attention when I was up on a mountain playing with throwers. To cut a long story short, he used his car’s loudspeaker to say “Hiker, if you’re OK, flash your light once.”
Cars headlights are also quite powerful. Sometimes the car just behind mine seems to have the beam misaligned causing discomfort when looking at the rear mirror. In such a case I slow down and let that car go past. I have no way to lwt that car owner know that he needs to fix his lights.
I discovered long ago that just reaching up and wiggling my rear view mirror so it bounces the headlight back at the driver beind me usually gets the message across. Then I wave a “thank you” when he dims it or backs off.
Just today I counted at least 4 douchebags driving with their brights on, and/or with one of those retarded “light-bars” on the front grille (you know the kind, the 2×N array of LEDs about 2’ wide).
One was during the day, about 10ish! Like, seriously??
Interesting, I was talking with a friend the other day about the trucks with added illumination and headlight upgrades. Here is a web page that popped up on a feed of mine. Not sure how legit the information is.
I see that all the time, too. Worse when it’s usually a black minivan/suv.
Once when I was taking the bus home, some idiot in (again) a dark minivan with no lights on, was waiting at a red light, 2nd in line behind another car. Not even DRLs, just dark. He gets impatient when the light turns green and car #1 isn’t getting going quickly enough, so flashes the brights at him!
You’d think the reflected light and then nothing would clue him in that his lights aren’t on, right? Nope.